Halfmud
by MerciaLachesis
Summary: One of Annabeth's siblings go missing. Another one. Like the rest, she's presumed dead. There isn't much to think about this, really. Except that she was lucky enough to have made it that old at all. If a demigod wants to be found, they're going to have to make their own way back. Everyone knows this. LUNA-CENTRIC, ANNABETH-CENTRIC.


The report goes out around Christmas time, though it looks quite bleak. Annabeth's sister is missing. She's always been an odd one, that Luna, but she's her sister all the same. Luna Lovegood doesn't stay permanently at Camp, she attends a boarding school in Britain, but she always comes back for the Summer and Winter Solstice. The Winter Solstice is around Christmas time, just before it actually, and the report goes out the next day. Nobody is surprised to say the least, it still happens too often, the odds are she's been mauled by a monster. As per.

(She has. Just not the kind of monster Annabeth thinks about.)

They send out no search parties. No messengers. No satyrs. It makes Annabeth's blood boil but she holds her tongue. After all, there are so many Children of Athena and so many demigods that Luna's existence is practically non-existent in the grand scheme of things. Nowhere in the prophesies do they mention a slightly dotty child of the goddess of war and wisdom and art. The gods won't waste such valuable resources on someone so trivial, they've a war coming too soon for that. Not even Annabeth herself can look.

Instead, a casual word is given to those outside the Camp to look out for Athena's daughter - though Annabeth thinks it's just to appease her.

After a month she's announced dead. There is no ceremony for dead campers that are not _heroes._ It's not the first time Annabeth's lost a sister and it won't be the last. Still, when she puts the lights out in her cabin that night and checks to make sure everyone's in bed, ignoring the way her heart sinks at the empty space two rows away from her. She slips out when she's sure her siblings are asleep and heads to Percy's cabin, not even bothering to knock and clambers inside the bed next to him.

"Percy?" she says, carefully pulling on the material of his shirt.

"Ngh." replies Percy unintelligently. But Percy is not unintelligent, he is very intelligent, so she tugs him again.

"Percy." she says more urgently and he startles awake. His eyes snap open and he shoots up looking around, shaking, before his eyes focus on her worried frame. He relaxes and his gaze softens almost involuntarily.

This time he tugs her in, embracing her lightly. "Hey." he whispers fervently. "How are you?"

She shrugs. "Chiron called me to the Big House today. Said he had some news… Percy, my sister's dead... _Another one._ "

Around her, she feels Percy visibly tense. He always gets like this when he hears about deaths, it doesn't matter how close they are. He breathes loudly and heavily and she lets herself get caught up in sync with it.

"Which one?"

He won't know even if she recounts every life detail but he still asks. He still wants to remember them. So does she. "Luna. Luna Lovegood. Stays during summer and half the winter. British. Fifteen years old." she says. It's on the register, a clinical, non-personal profile of a person.

"Oh." he pauses for a brief moment before chuckling humourlessly. "The crazy one? About the same height as Nico when he slouches? Always had a stick in behind her ear?"

It sounds disrespectful, sure, but they mean it fondly. "Yeah." she whispers. "That one."

"How'd you know? I mean- How'd they find out?" She can't see his face at the moment, she's being the little spoon, but she can tell he's frowning.

"They didn't- she just-" There isn't an answer for this question. They don't know, they didn't find out. "She's been missing for weeks, Percy, and she always catches the Winter Solstice, we haven't had any contact whatsoever…" she hears herself say instead, her reasoning weak. "There's no other explanation."

Percy scoffs darkly, she forgets how cold he can be sometimes, especially when it comes to their kind. "Well we don't know for sure, do we? A few weeks is nothing, we just haven't been searching."

They haven't been searching. He's right.

Annabeth doesn't reply. She closes her eyes and forces herself to sleep and not think about it. She can't think about it. She can't hope it. Hope is dangerous and the odds aren't by her side. She just remembers her. That's all she can do now. Demigods aren't immortal. They don't live very long. It is cruel and it is unfair, but in the end they cannot hope to have a long, happy life, only a memorable one. That's the only way they can live 'til they're seventy.

Most Demigods aren't remembered.

* * *

It's the second week of May. Suffice to say, Luna doesn't live very long. She's forgotten already in favour of the countless others that have gone missing and decided dead. But on the second week of May, the tenth to be precise, a whimsical, fair-headed child of Athena comes back. The way she moves is tired but hopeful and almost like she's floating. Annabeth's talking to Chiron at the time and gives an uncharacteristic whelp as she sees her.

The girl smiles and waves and drifts her way over like a feather. From the distance, she looks much the same if a bit smaller, but as she comes closer she's quick to notice (and wonder about) the deep, jagged gash on her face that crosses over her eye to her ear. Not bleeding but not healed. It's also a rather hot day but Luna's wearing a long sleeved top with a high neck, and it makes Annabeth instantly wary about how many other scars there are.

"Hello." she says, smiling like she isn't officially dead. Annabeth looks into her eyes and doesn't quite have the heart to tell her that War's still on the menu. Percy is missing. The gods are silent and Chiron looks ready to bolt. Luna looks like she's just been through a one, if she's honest.

But she's not honest often.

"Wha- Luna…" she begins, unsure where to begin. "We thought you were dead! Where were you?"

She kind of _looks_ dead. She's pale and skinny. Too pale and too skinny. Starved. Malnourished.

Next to her, Chiron stands there, a look of silent relief and worry on his face. He says nothing though.

Maybe he's in shock. It's not the norm for a dead Demigod to come back after all. In fact it is quite extraordinary.

"So did I at one point." replies Luna in a matter-of-fact tone. "Luckily I wasn't."

Annabeth frowns. "What happened? Where were you?" she says again.

Luna just shrugs. "Many places." and it's as dissatisfying of an answer she can get, but Annabeth is not the head counsellor of the Cabin of Wisdom for nothing so she knows not to pry. "I'm quite tired from my trip so I'm going to take a shower now. We can talk later, yes?" she says to the both of them.

Annabeth turns round and gives a quick nod to Chiron. "I'll come with you." she says quickly, and she doesn't miss it when she grabs Luna's shoulder and the other girl flinches involuntarily away from the touch.

"All right." allows Luna but she looks reluctant.

Chiron dismisses them but asks them to see him after dinner and Annabeth finds herself surprised he saw fit to invite her as well. Nevertheless she doesn't question it.

"What happened to your stick, Luna?" she asks conversationally as they make their way to the Athena Cabin, she figures it's a light enough topic. It's just a stick after all. "Wasn't your other one darker than this one? Why'd you change it?"

Turns out she's wrong.

She sees the way Luna stiffens and tries to pretend it's nothing. "They snapped it." she says vaguely.

They? Who's they?

"I do like my new one, though." She continues casually. They've never been that close but Annabeth knows enough about her sisters and herself to see through the front. "But I guess you can never forget the feeling of using your first one."

Annabeth walks beside her and pretends she understands, humming in neutral agreement.

But pretending to understand is quite different to actually understanding, you see, and Annabeth hates not understanding, not knowing

There is perhaps a certain comfort in ignorance. Perhaps that would apply here. But Annabeth's not looking for comfort. She's a daughter of Athena, you know.

They arrive at the showers shortly after this and Annabeth is about to turn and leave her to her own devices when she feels Luna catch her hand. Annabeth turns to look at her. There's a silent plea on her face. She's shaking.

"Don't leave yet." She says quietly.

Annabeth has never been too close to Luna Lovegood. She'd been too odd, too eccentric, too whimsical. Too confusing and Annabeth could never really get her. If Luna had been anything else but Athena's daughter she might have hated her. As it is, now, she finds herself studying her sister.

Annabeth gives Luna's hand a squeeze and whispers "Okay."

There's nothing weird about it. They are sisters after all.

She helps her undress.

The first layer of clothing, Luna's bright orange, high-neck, long sleeve top, comes off with a gasp. Quite literally on her part. She knows why it was worn on such a hot day now.

There are scars. So many scars. And it's clear now that they aren't caused by the type of monsters she sees in her nightmares. No. Luna has a very different, very real type of monster haunting her.

She examines them instantly, invading her space like she's some healer and she's never felt intruded on before herself.

The one on her neck spells out " _blood traitor_ " in bloodied ink and crude chicken-scratch penmanship. It's scored out messily several times and it's a wonder she can read it with her dyslexia. If only she couldn't.

Suddenly, Annabeth feels the urge to vomit.

Luna meets her eyes and cringes away. "They did that when I told them I couldn't possibly be a blood traitor because by definition it implies I must be pureblood. And I'm not. So they had to cross it out." She explains quietly, carefully.

She doesn't know what " _blood traitor_ " or " _pureblood_ " means, but she does understand the next.

" _Half-blood_ " is engraved into the skin above her heart accompanied by the words " _filthy_ ", but the way the word is formed in itself makes it look like a disease, like a curse.

There have been times when Annabeth's hated being a half-blood, times when she's cursed it and meant it - what with their constant fear of death by monster and apparent attraction to bad luck and never living to see thirty. But, this might be the first time in her life she's actually felt ashamed of what they are.

Almost as if Luna _isn't_ hyperaware of the attention, she starts humming as she peels off her underwear and her loosely fitted jeans. It's not so bad on her legs. There are a few blotches of even paler skin, only half healed, and Annabeth's seen enough injuries in her lifetime to recognize which scares were cuts and which were burns and how severe they were and when, though there are some kinds she doesn't recognize like the one on her inner thigh which looks like her skin exploded and imploded and is a smattering of patchy marks and a small firework of pink at the epicenter.

Soon, Luna turns the showers on, so Annabeth's forced to step back a bit to stop from getting too drenched; she still has climbing to teach with the youngest campers in twenty minutes. She also wants to back away. Wants to back away from her sister and all the deliberate suffering she's gone through and pretend it is all a weird dream, the ones that are bad but not waking up screaming bad. More of the hollow kind. Where you wake up and _want_ to scream but _can't._

"It's not so bad you know." Luna speaks after about three minutes of silence. "Most of them are already healed along with all the bruises, and the ones that aren't healed don't hurt anymore." She shrugs, reaching for a bottle of shampoo on the floor.

Annabeth can't quite look away. How she takes each droplet of water like it's an individual gift, how she can't quite keep from wincing when she bends down, how small she looks. With a tiny start, she realises she's missed one.

It's just on the small of her back.

(Where Percy's, thus her, weakness, is.)

 _"Halfmud."_

She's smart enough to know what that means. She's a child of Athena, remember? And so is Luna and oh, all the kids here are _Halfmud._ Whether it be the distain of the divine at their mortal half, or the contempt from monsters at their divine half.

"It doesn't mean what you think it means." says Luna at length.

Annabeth hears herself scoff. "What else?" Because what other half can Luna be? There are only two halves to anything, after all. She doesn't receive an answer. Her sister finishes rinsing her hair, a little too methodically, and switches off the water, clinging to the towel that Annabeth holds out to her.

Silently, she follows her back into the main sleeping area of the cabin, and Annabeth wordlessly hands her a classic orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt because it's summer and they all have enough scars that maybe no-one will see Luna's. They will probably be more shocked at seeing her at all. She lends her a pair of lightweight cotton shorts that go about mid-thigh and flip-flops and gently takes Luna's towel and starts drying her hair, combing through it and making the cold, wet texture of each strand ground her.

It is perhaps, she muses, more cruel. One dead sibling returned and so many yet to. Why Luna of all people? Nobody ever thought the Fates had much purpose for her other than her own fate. Why? Why this unremarkable, silly, whimsical child of Athena? Not Percy who has been the hero of one prophesy and is maybe the hero of yet another? Why not any of the others? It's a small hope that Luna has brought to them, but perhaps not worth the bitterness of never finding the others. The eternal _what if_?

She stares down at Luna, still drying her hair, and tries to banish her deep gut-wrenching resentment that slowly builds anyways. It's not _Luna_ she's truly annoyed at. It's the Fates and this world and how _unfair_ everything is.

They head down to the Big House after dinner (and everyone stares and stares and hopes and wonders _and_ ) and Chiron and Luna exchange words that Annabeth can scarcely try to decode.

But by the end of it, she learns there is more than two halves to Half-blood sometimes.

* * *

They're on the Argo II when it comes up again, sitting at their sort-of meeting area and it just crosses her mind, for some reason. And Percy looks like he needs a little hope. She hesitates before speaking still, but his eyes meet hers and so she might as well anyways.

"They found Luna," she begins, "you know, Cabin Six, a bit weird, went missing before you did, declared dead?"

For a moment she sees his eyes mist over and unreasonably, she feels herself grow just a little disappointed. Never mind that she too almost forgot her.

He snaps his fingers, "Oh wave-y stick one right?" he asks to clarify, and she nods, yeah. Remarkably, he starts laughing. Light and full of relief and relieved. "Good." he says simply. "Good."

"Yeah."

He rubs his eye and runs his fingers through his hair almost erratically, taking a large gulp of the Coke Leo has somehow managed to provide. "How'd they find her?" he asks, and for a moment she's suddenly struck by the memory ( _"How'd you know? I mean- How'd they find out?"_ ).

She shrugs slowly. "We didn't." she replies carefully. "She found us. Found her way back."

Percy only smiles and leans back to swing his chair, smile small and if a little bitter. "Yeah, figures." And she knows what he's thinking. It's what a lot of demigods think before they're about to die (and she knows this from experience). _Because most demigods aren't remembered. Most half-bloods are forgotten._

And at that battle(not the final one because gods know there will always be more), she catches Luna with her silly little stick waving around and sparks dance off her and her aura exudes strength and wisdom and a lot of other things she might never understand. Yeah. _Halfmud_. Sure.

Luna makes it in time for the Winter Solstice that year. And the next.

* * *

 **A/N - I hope you liked the fic, also pls leave a review? much thank ;D**

 **-Mercia**


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